Ian Sykes and Ian Sutherland owned an outdoor shop in Fort William (Scotland) back in the good old days – Nevisport. They were both keen climbers and worked out that, based on the shape and angle of a Terrordactyl ice-axe, these little devices would make good ice pitons. They had the Cassin franchise in their shop back then and got Cassin to make some in the Italian factory. They didn’t sell very well, probably because ice screws had recently appeared on the scene, they were fairly easy to place and you didn’t have to hack them out afterwards as you did with the bulldog – the concept was shelved for a while. Not sure how, who or when the new versions arrived – possibly 1990s – bigger, probably stronger and made of steel, ours seems to be copper/bronze. We don’t see many of the new versions around either and they too may well suffer from ice screw evolution, the modern titanium, super fast screw versions making ice climbing fun rather than death defying. They reckoned ice climbers had the dinosaur syndrome back in the day – long neck and no brains, it’s now short necks and empty pockets – titanium screws ain’t cheap!